Originally posted by DanitaKusor

After spending a good portion of today in WvW I finally understand why people are saying this game is Play-to-win and I am starting to agree with that assertion.

My experience in WvW was limited money gain vs. high repair costs every time I died which was leaving most of the team naked because they couldn't afford to repair their armour when we were originally matched against a full server and got slaughtered every time we stepped outside the door.

Later after the matchups changed we were left with a better situtation and got some more people on the server after people were transferring off full servers because they couldn't get into WvW (my server never had a queue for any of the zones).  So we managed to take some castles and I made a bit of money from those captures, but still certainly not enough to buy siege weapons of any kind.  I had about 12silver when I finished, but needed to spend 10s of that on the manual to unlock traits, so a 2s profit from a full day of WvW.

Anyway, I went off to dinner and when I came back I found a new player had arrived in the zone on our side.  He had bought the commander title (now 100g), and had started laying out siege engines like candy with each battle, including golems which are 1g a piece.  He paid for every keep upgrade at our two main keeps leading up to Stonemist and put up arrow carts, cannons, mortars, and a trebuchet as defensive weapons. on the walls.

The end result was that although we were heavily outnumbered still vs. the blue server which was another full server we were able to smash through the walls of Stonemist several times and nearly took it.  When we were eventually driven back, the enemy players came into range out of newly fortified keeps and were slaughtered by the dozens and forced to retreat, even though they had larger numbers.  The fight was still going on when I logged off so I'm not sure where it will end.

The end result was through the actions of one player who was buying gems and changed them into gold (current rate is 50silver per 100gems), my server was able to move into second place and threaten the main keep in the Eternal Battlegrounds.

Now perhaps by the time people reach 80 we will be earning enough coin that this won't be an issue, but certainly as it stands in the beta at the moment the person willing to spend RL money on gems can make a huge difference to a server.  It's so much easier when every time you are assaulting a keep someone turns up with 2 rams and a ballista or a golem instead of trying to take the door down by hand.

I hadn't spent much time in WvW in previous beta but seeing this in action today it was a real eye opener. 

 Pay to win is imo a copy of RL. In games it can be frustrating especally if you like pvp i guess.

I personly dont care much about it since I dont pvp and I dont mind other people to reach level cap months before I reach that goal(game over :-))

I think we must adapt ourselfs for this new kind of payment mode,maybe days of subscription are over.

We might have to enter our games with different state of mind,having in thoughts that guy(girl) in our group might be willi ng to pay €1000 or more to get better than the rest of us.

Hopefully devs will continue to make games enjoiable even for those not wanting to spend thousunds of €$ for the best gear.

Of curse it costs lots of money to make a new game and they need to get payed for their work and I dont think they will ever make games that frustrating to play unless you pay loads that no people will play it.

I personly miss the plain subscription modell with no cash shop,tho I think those kind of games will not appear foravile.

But sooner or later I think they bring it back since so many people dislike p2w. But that will not happen untill we players dont play those p2w games at all.

Try have fun playing,it is a game anyway:-)

Originally posted by seridan

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Every time someone spends real money to get in game gold, someone else gets gems to improve its game experience.

That is the difference.

In other games gold farms contribute nothing to the game community-

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Also people need to understand that it goes like this:

X Gold + X Supply = X Siege engine.

That means that if I have 50000000000000 gold but the game only has 1000 supply there is a bottleneck.

1000 Gold + 1000 Supply = 1000 siege engines

Enter "P2W real money":

5000000000000000000000 Gold + 1000 Supply = 1000 engines.

Nothing changed.

There is a limiting reagent that is only controlled by the game and player skills.

 

 

 

Got to bump this one :)

The OP statement is not true. As far as the ingame economy is concerned, there is no difference in the overall effect on the economy. In 1 case, you have a farmer dig up, gather up, loot up, and/or farm up coin, goods what have you. The real money is exchanged out side the game and then the items are introduced into the game's economy where they will be circulated, converted and processed in some way or another until they are eventually removed by some player paying an NPC for some service or item where gold is "sunk" out of the economy. Regardless, players benefitted from the items the Farmers gathered. The only real difference between the 2 is that the publisher gets the real money instead of some sweatshop in China.

Originally posted by GeezerGamer

Originally posted by seridan

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Every time someone spends real money to get in game gold, someone else gets gems to improve its game experience.

That is the difference.

In other games gold farms contribute nothing to the game community-

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also people need to understand that it goes like this:

X Gold + X Supply = X Siege engine.

That means that if I have 50000000000000 gold but the game only has 1000 supply there is a bottleneck.

1000 Gold + 1000 Supply = 1000 siege engines

Enter "P2W real money":

5000000000000000000000 Gold + 1000 Supply = 1000 engines.

Nothing changed.

There is a limiting reagent that is only controlled by the game and player skills.

 

 

 

Got to bump this one :)

The OP statement is not true. As far as the ingame economy is concerned, there is no difference in the overall effect on the economy. In 1 case, you have a farmer dig up, gather up, loot up, and/or farm up coin, goods what have you. The real money is exchanged out side the game and then the items are introduced into the game's economy where they will be circulated, converted and processed in some way or another until they are eventually removed by some player paying an NPC for some service or item where gold is "sunk" out of the economy. Regardless, players benefitted from the items the Farmers gathered. The only real difference between the 2 is that the publisher gets the real money instead of some sweatshop in China.

Think EvE Plex.

Gold farmers get money.

GW2 players farming get CS items like character slots, mini pets. GW2 paying money support the game, the other players and they get something in game without spending time/spending less time.

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Think EvE Plex.

Gold farmers get money.

GW2 players farming get CS items like character slots, mini pets. GW2 paying money support the game, the other players and they get something in game without spending time/spending less time.

Don't ever compare Plex to Gems.  It isn't even close to the same.   Plex has absolutely no use except to buy game time, or trade for in game currency.

Gems can be used to buy anything in the store, and this means they will always have increasing value.   Gold on the other hand will continually be devalued as more and more enters the game.   The only thing players can hope is that there is enough currency sinks so that hyper inflation does not occur. 

I seriously doubt your " supply " item will balance out the availability of siege weapons.  Unless this is hard coded limit that is part of the structured PvP.

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by GeezerGamer

Originally posted by seridan

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Every time someone spends real money to get in game gold, someone else gets gems to improve its game experience.

That is the difference.

In other games gold farms contribute nothing to the game community-

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also people need to understand that it goes like this:

X Gold + X Supply = X Siege engine.

That means that if I have 50000000000000 gold but the game only has 1000 supply there is a bottleneck.

1000 Gold + 1000 Supply = 1000 siege engines

Enter "P2W real money":

5000000000000000000000 Gold + 1000 Supply = 1000 engines.

Nothing changed.

There is a limiting reagent that is only controlled by the game and player skills.

 

 

 

Got to bump this one :)

The OP statement is not true. As far as the ingame economy is concerned, there is no difference in the overall effect on the economy. In 1 case, you have a farmer dig up, gather up, loot up, and/or farm up coin, goods what have you. The real money is exchanged out side the game and then the items are introduced into the game's economy where they will be circulated, converted and processed in some way or another until they are eventually removed by some player paying an NPC for some service or item where gold is "sunk" out of the economy. Regardless, players benefitted from the items the Farmers gathered. The only real difference between the 2 is that the publisher gets the real money instead of some sweatshop in China.

Think EvE Plex.

Gold farmers get money.

GW2 players farming get CS items like character slots, mini pets. GW2 paying money support the game, the other players and they get something in game without spending time/spending less time.

I never said it was all bad. I am saying that at some level, players do benefit from gold farming. But just like official gold buying and selling, If it gets out of balance, it can ruin the game's economy.

As it is, GW2's economy will be founded on the value of the gem. Any item or service players can trade will be valuated by how it stacks up against the gem. But unlike EVE, GW2 will not be based on a player driven economy.

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Originally posted by lifeordinary

Who gives a f*** which MMO takes MMO OF THE YEAR reward as if it means anything. Eve was nominated MMO of the year many times and i wouldn't even touch it.

Also back to topic, right now the only fix is to boost the money rewards in PVP at lower levels because a lot of players like me would be playing GW2 for PVP alone. And i certainly don't want people to buy seige and stuff because they can spend more rl money through gems.

It might not be  a problem at high levels but since you can start pvp at lvl 1 in GW2 it is certainly a problem for low level players.

WvW isn't PvP.

WvW isn't perfectly balanced.

It is a PvE/PvP hybrid.

WHAT?

Originally posted by Atlan99

Originally posted by Adalwulff

And you still need supply for all those weapons and defenses, so go ahead buy all the gold you want.

Have you played WvWvW?

Because if you had you would realize that supply is seldom an issue. Once you have the mindest to always grab supply, you always have it. Gold on the other hand you can't really get in WvWvW unless you take time away from PvP and objectives to do it.

I expect this to change as the game matures, but at launch a small coordinated group with unlimited gold can faceroll much large uncoordinated groups. We held off 50+ at one point with a group of six. 4 arrow carts and oil = gg.

No.. I have never played the WvW...

It takes a lot of teamwork to build each and every siege weapon, I cant tell you how many times I would plop down a seige only to be destroyed before it was built becuase nobody had any supply.

And what if you only had a small team, instead of the zerg. Thats means multiple trips for supply.

You guys and the OP make it sound like he just plopped down all this siege and they magically built themselves and started shooting all by themselves...lol.. 

If you dont like GW2 then fine, but lets at least keep the crazy exagerations too a min, shall we?

Originally posted by thinktank001

Originally posted by Gaia_Hunter

Think EvE Plex.

Gold farmers get money.

GW2 players farming get CS items like character slots, mini pets. GW2 paying money support the game, the other players and they get something in game without spending time/spending less time.

 

Don't ever compare Plex to Gems.  It isn't even close to the same.   Plex has absolutely no use except to buy game time, or trade for in game currency.

 

Gems can be used to buy anything in the store, and this means they will always have increasing value.   Gold on the other hand will continually be devalued as more and more enters the game.   The only thing players can hope is that there is enough currency sinks so that hyper inflation does not occur. 

 

I seriously doubt your " supply " item will balance out the availability of siege weapons.  Unless this is hard coded limit that is part of the structured PvP.

In the case of this discussion, gems are used to trade real money for in game money, so just like Plex.

Supply is generated at regular intervals in supply camps and then transported to keeps/castles via dolyaks. Each player can carry 10 supply.

Each siege weapon cost more than 10 supply.

If you conquer the supply camps and/or disrupt the dolyak caravans, no supply for your team.

So yeah, supply is capped.

Siege weapons have nothing to do with structured PvP - they are WvW.

I wish people stopped talking about stuff they don't know how it works just because they saw how it works in other games - some games and developers are losers and others are winners.

You can have 10000000 gold but with no supply you are nothing.

Originally posted by DanitaKusor

*snip*

The end result was that although we were heavily outnumbered still vs. the blue server which was another full server we were able to smash through the walls of Stonemist several times and nearly took it.  When we were eventually driven back, the enemy players came into range out of newly fortified keeps and were slaughtered by the dozens and forced to retreat, even though they had larger numbers.  The fight was still going on when I logged off so I'm not sure where it will end.

The end result was through the actions of one player who was buying gems and changed them into gold (current rate is 50silver per 100gems), my server was able to move into second place and threaten the main keep in the Eternal Battlegrounds.

*snip*

When a server holds mostly PvE players, then the only option for the small PvP crowd is to get the PvE players to fork over gold. This can go through Guilds, but with beta it's mostly only gems. You seem to think this is a bad thing. The alternative is being slaughtered without a chance in hell, would you prefer that?

The gems are sold on a server, the server has to grind the gold. It's not like gems = unlimited gold supply. The gold still has to come from players.

Originally posted by JoeyMMO

When a server holds mostly PvE players, then the only option for the small PvP crowd is to get the PvE players to fork over gold. This can go through Guilds, but with beta it's mostly only gems. You seem to think this is a bad thing. The alternative is being slaughtered without a chance in hell, would you prefer that?

The gems are sold on a server, the server has to grind the gold. It's not like gems = unlimited gold supply. The gold still has to come from players.

I am undecided if it is a good or bad thing at the moment. It was certainly good for my server at the time.

The market place is global, so not server based.  That means the gem sales are global as well so your server doesn't have to farm anything someone on another server can.

Arenanet also seem to be injecting gold into the market here as well if someone was able to spend hundreds of dollars on gems in the first day of beta when no one had coin.  I'm making an assumption here based what happened, but it looks that if no one is buying gems, you can still sell them which suggests that the game is buying them.  Now it may be that there is a limit to how much this can happen but hard to tell.

I think in the end my main concerns about the system is that it means that you can't only do WvW unless you buy gems, you are going to be forced to PvE.  You lose money in WvW, quite a bit of it to repairs which increase as you go up in level (one death now costs me 25c).  When I ran out of coin this morning I had to drop out of WvW and run around doing events in the PvE zone, which made me 5s in about half an hour which will be enough to buy 1 ram and fund my repairs for an hour or two.

You can level in WvW, you can get gear from the karma vendors there (including my nice new green staff that was a drop), but you don't make enough coin to fund repairs and purchases.  I've had to leave twice now and spend an hour or two doing PvE to build up cash reserves to continue.

Originally posted by JoeyMMO

Originally posted by DanitaKusor

*snip*

The end result was that although we were heavily outnumbered still vs. the blue server which was another full server we were able to smash through the walls of Stonemist several times and nearly took it.  When we were eventually driven back, the enemy players came into range out of newly fortified keeps and were slaughtered by the dozens and forced to retreat, even though they had larger numbers.  The fight was still going on when I logged off so I'm not sure where it will end.

The end result was through the actions of one player who was buying gems and changed them into gold (current rate is 50silver per 100gems), my server was able to move into second place and threaten the main keep in the Eternal Battlegrounds.

*snip*

When a server holds mostly PvE players, then the only option for the small PvP crowd is to get the PvE players to fork over gold. This can go through Guilds, but with beta it's mostly only gems. You seem to think this is a bad thing. The alternative is being slaughtered without a chance in hell, would you prefer that?

The gems are sold on a server, the server has to grind the gold. It's not like gems = unlimited gold supply. The gold still has to come from players.

am i the only one who think that they are introducing a real money auction thingy just blizzard did in diablo 3 ?

Originally posted by DanitaKusor

You can level in WvW, you can get gear from the karma vendors there (including my nice new green staff that was a drop), but you don't make enough coin to fund repairs and purchases.  I've had to leave twice now and spend an hour or two doing PvE to build up cash reserves to continue.

The ability to level up purely in WvW is definitely a more valid concern. They have said they are still working on setting the costs and I do hope they make things cheaper especially Lvl 2-10 or so.

I'm still not concerned about Gems in WvW though because of Supply, the vastly increased amount of funds available to a Server's WvW team as people level up, and the way Servers are matched up.

If there is some large Guild on some Server funded by a Lottery winner willing to dump hundreds of dollars a week into GW2 I'm even ok with that - because that Lottery Winner will be bankrolling all kinds of new content for me and everybody else to enjoy ;D

Originally posted by DanitaKusor

Originally posted by JoeyMMO

When a server holds mostly PvE players, then the only option for the small PvP crowd is to get the PvE players to fork over gold. This can go through Guilds, but with beta it's mostly only gems. You seem to think this is a bad thing. The alternative is being slaughtered without a chance in hell, would you prefer that?

The gems are sold on a server, the server has to grind the gold. It's not like gems = unlimited gold supply. The gold still has to come from players.

I am undecided if it is a good or bad thing at the moment. It was certainly good for my server at the time.

The market place is global, so not server based.  That means the gem sales are global as well so your server doesn't have to farm anything someone on another server can.

Arenanet also seem to be injecting gold into the market here as well if someone was able to spend hundreds of dollars on gems in the first day of beta when no one had coin.  I'm making an assumption here based what happened, but it looks that if no one is buying gems, you can still sell them which suggests that the game is buying them.  Now it may be that there is a limit to how much this can happen but hard to tell.

I think in the end my main concerns about the system is that it means that you can't only do WvW unless you buy gems, you are going to be forced to PvE.  You lose money in WvW, quite a bit of it to repairs which increase as you go up in level (one death now costs me 25c).  When I ran out of coin this morning I had to drop out of WvW and run around doing events in the PvE zone, which made me 5s in about half an hour which will be enough to buy 1 ram and fund my repairs for an hour or two.

You can level in WvW, you can get gear from the karma vendors there (including my nice new green staff that was a drop), but you don't make enough coin to fund repairs and purchases.  I've had to leave twice now and spend an hour or two doing PvE to build up cash reserves to continue.

and who knows how much accounts gold farmers will use to  upset the market? in diablo 3 with so many hacked accounts and other crazy stuff the game is unplayable . it will be better  for me to wait 6 months and dont jump on the wagon at the moment .

Originally posted by lotaparty

Originally posted by JoeyMMO

Originally posted by DanitaKusor

*snip*

The end result was that although we were heavily outnumbered still vs. the blue server which was another full server we were able to smash through the walls of Stonemist several times and nearly took it.  When we were eventually driven back, the enemy players came into range out of newly fortified keeps and were slaughtered by the dozens and forced to retreat, even though they had larger numbers.  The fight was still going on when I logged off so I'm not sure where it will end.

The end result was through the actions of one player who was buying gems and changed them into gold (current rate is 50silver per 100gems), my server was able to move into second place and threaten the main keep in the Eternal Battlegrounds.

*snip*

When a server holds mostly PvE players, then the only option for the small PvP crowd is to get the PvE players to fork over gold. This can go through Guilds, but with beta it's mostly only gems. You seem to think this is a bad thing. The alternative is being slaughtered without a chance in hell, would you prefer that?

The gems are sold on a server, the server has to grind the gold. It's not like gems = unlimited gold supply. The gold still has to come from players.

am i the only one who think that they are introducing a real money auction thingy just blizzard did in diablo 3 ?

D3 is designed for you to go visit the AH or grind grind and hope you get a good drop.

GW2 CS is designed for you to play and get the max gear stuff without much problem. Then there is aesthetics grinds. The CS is designed for one to speed up things a tiny bit if he is really impatient.

I don't think there's really a counter to the fact that owning more money (through selling gems in the case of paying customers) will get you an advantage in-game.

For example: you can level up via crafting, you can buy all crafting ingredients from other players, therefore you could theoretically level from 1-80 just through buying mats and crafting your way up.

It's a simple reality tbh. The question is how much of an effect the cash shop will have on the eventual power levels of players. From what I know, it will be limited. Players who spend money will be able to level up faster and probably have access to better items faster, but it looks like the gear advantage will completely even out at the level cap, therefore it is withing acceptable borders for me.

I don't think the siege weapon advantage will continue for the gem-buying player for example: when the cost of the weapon becomes negligible, the supply cost will be the most important thing of note.

Originally posted by Stx11

Originally posted by DanitaKusor

You can level in WvW, you can get gear from the karma vendors there (including my nice new green staff that was a drop), but you don't make enough coin to fund repairs and purchases.  I've had to leave twice now and spend an hour or two doing PvE to build up cash reserves to continue.

The ability to level up purely in WvW is definitely a more valid concern. They have said they are still working on setting the costs and I do hope they make things cheaper especially Lvl 2-10 or so.

I'm still not concerned about Gems in WvW though because of Supply, the vastly increased amount of funds available to a Server's WvW team as people level up, and the way Servers are matched up.

If there is some large Guild on some Server funded by a Lottery winner willing to dump hundreds of dollars a week into GW2 I'm even ok with that - because that Lottery Winner will be bankrolling all kinds of new content for me and everybody else to enjoy ;D

it wont be enjoyment if he beats you out just because he has big pocket and your pocket has got small holes

Originally posted by lotaparty

it wont be enjoyment if he beats you out just because he has big pocket and your pocket has got small holes

Assuming I'm on a completely "crap" WvW Server I'll never fight him and his server due to rankings.

If I'm on a really good WvW Server I don't think all those Blueprints will make a difference in the long run.

Even with my joke line... one lottery winner can't do it by himself. He'd have to hire/have a Guild of really coordinated and dedicated people... and that can be matched/overcome by an equally coordinated/dedicated group 1-2 months into the game.

Sorry, but it's not a big deal.

The only Pay 2 Win in the Cash Shop is being able to stomp your opponent with a Cow.

Winning.

Whats really funny is how they ignore the need for supply, whenever I bring it up, they simply ignore it and stick to thier claim that buying gold will ruin GW2.

They just dont get it do they?